Patient guides · the money question

How medical travel facilitators are paid

Every player in medical travel is paid by somebody — the honest question is who, how much, and what that money asks of the advice you receive. This page sets out the five payment models you will actually meet, in plain terms, with the incentive each one creates. It is the conversation this industry usually avoids having, and the reason our own model — patient-paid, hospital-neutral — exists at all.

What are the payment models in medical travel?

Five models cover essentially everyone: commissions on treatment, per-lead fees, listing fees, hospital-owned desks, and patient-paid flat fees. The first four are paid by hospitals or platforms; only the last is paid by you — which is precisely why it aligns the advisor with the patient.

Model	Who uses it	How it works	The incentive it creates
Commission on treatment	Most large marketplaces and agency chains	A percentage of your hospital bill — commonly quoted around 10–20% in industry commentary — is paid by the hospital to the facilitator after you are admitted.	The facilitator earns more when your treatment costs more, and earns nothing if you choose conservative care or no treatment.
Per-lead / per-booking fees	Lead-marketplace platforms	Hospitals pay for each patient enquiry or booking the platform delivers, sometimes with tiered placement fees on top.	Enquiries flow to the highest bidder; the “matching” is a sales channel wearing a clinical coat.
Listing / directory fees	Hospital directories	Hospitals pay to appear — or appear prominently — in a directory. The patient sees a list that is actually an ad inventory.	Presence and rank track payment, not fit for your case.
Bundled “free” quotes	Hospital-owned international desks (any group)	The quote is free because the desk’s job is to sell its own hospital. There is no facilitator fee — and no facilitator.	Every answer points inward, at one hospital.
Patient-paid flat fees	Us, and a very small set of others	The patient pays a published, fixed fee for defined work; the facilitator takes no hospital money in any form.	Aligned with the patient: the honest answer — including “you may not need this trip” — is the repeatable business.

The commission range cited above reflects commonly published industry commentary rather than any single disclosed rate — rates are rarely disclosed, which is part of the problem this page exists to describe.

How do you compare facilitators across models?

Ask everyone the same three questions, in writing, and read the answers side by side:

1 Who pays you? Any hospital, doctor, agent, or platform money — referral, commission, listing, marketing — in any form.
2 Do you mark up quotes? Can you show me the hospital’s own invoice, not just a package number?
3 What do I pay you, published where? A model that cannot answer in one line is answering.

The deeper checklist — accreditations, doctor registration, itemized quotes, refunds — is on our facilitator-questions page, and the red flags that show up most in Indian hospital quotes have their own guide.

Our answer, stated once

We take no commissions from hospitals. Our fees are paid by you, published upfront, and itemized separately from your hospital bill. The full schedule, crediting and refund rules: the fees page.

We wrote this page knowing it arms you to interrogate us too. That is the point: a model that survives its own questions is the only kind worth having.

How facilitators are paid: FAQs

Is a commission model always bad for the patient?

It is not always worse in outcome — but it is always a conflict of interest, and it is almost never disclosed with a number. A commission-funded facilitator cannot recommend the cheaper honest option without arguing against its own invoice, and industry commentary commonly places commissions around 10–20% of the treatment value. The patient usually never sees that money move; it is priced into the hospital’s international rate sheet. You are entitled to know who pays the person advising you.

How can a patient actually verify who pays a facilitator?

Ask three questions in writing: Do any hospitals, doctors, or their agents pay you anything — referral fees, commissions, listing fees, marketing money? Do you add any markup to hospital quotes, and can I see the hospital’s own invoice? And what exactly do I pay you, published where? A facilitator with nothing to hide answers all three in one email. Ours are answered on our fees page and on the facilitator-questions page.

What do you charge, in one sentence?

Patients pay us published flat fees — $50 for a remote consultation, $150 for a written second opinion, $1,000 for full journey coordination — and no hospital, doctor or agent pays us anything in any form. Every fee is credited in full to the next step: the $50 consultation fee comes off the $150 second opinion, and the $150 second-opinion fee comes off the $1,000 full journey fee. You never pay twice for moving forward.

Why would a hospital agree to work with a facilitator who takes no commission?

Because the fee is not the only currency: a case that arrives with complete records, a verified written second opinion, a correct visa file and realistic expectations is cheaper and safer for a hospital to serve. We also bring cases hospitals would not otherwise see. What we do not bring is exclusivity — our value to you is that the shortlist is built for your case, not for a partner’s pipeline.

Does “no commission” mean you are cheaper overall?

Not necessarily — and we would rather you hear that from us. A good commission-funded coordinator may still land you a fair quote. What the model changes is the incentive: our advice has no hospital invoice attached to it, so the conservative answer — the cheaper treatment, the second opinion that says wait — costs us nothing and serves you fully.

Put our model to the test with your case

A few lines are enough to start. We respond within four business hours.

Your name

Country

City

WhatsApp number

Email (optional)

Condition / what treatment has been advised?

Preferred contact time (your local time)

Please don't upload or paste medical reports here. We'll send you a secure link after we connect. And you already know what we charge: our fees are published before you share anything.

I agree to Medtu Care contacting me about my inquiry and processing the details I share for that purpose. See Privacy Policy.

Prefer email? Write to aditya@medtu.care — it reaches the same team.

Ready to talk it through?

Share your case in a few lines. A member of our team, not a bot, reads it, and we come back to you with honest next steps and no obligation.

Share your case Chat on WhatsApp

We respond within four business hours.

We are a small team — on weekends, expect a reply within one business day.